Adhesive tape dispensers are known which are both base-type models and which are hand held models. With the base type model, the cutting blade can be abbreviated in length since the fingers can be used to manipulate the tape adjacent the cutting edge. The manipulation can twist the tape across the cutting blade to always achieve a good cut. Usually a smooth flat surface is provided for the hands to manipulate the tape onto to hold it from the roll dispenser side of the blade to hold that side of the tape while the hand holds the other side for tearing.
This arrangement is fine for short lengths of tape which may be handled and applied manually. For application of extended lengths of tape in packaging operations, longer lengths of tape have a tendency to get caught on itself, to bunch up and to defeat the application to which the user wished to employ the tape in the first place.
One of the devices which has been employed over the years is the wholly manual tape applicator. This applicator usually consists of a handle supporting a spool and device to guide and dispense the tape. Usually with wider tape dispensers, such as tape from two to three inches wide, the cutting blade will consist of a sharply serrated or deeply serrated edge. By deeply serrated is meant that the triangular serrations fall into a range in which they may be higher than they are wide, to as much as three times as tall as they are wide. This serrated edge will have teeth which are somewhat shallow and which project from an edge of the tape dispenser. In some cases a stiff plastic shield is supplied at an angle which serves several purposes.
In some cases the shield helps the user to know the angular limitations of the tape dispenser necessary to permit the continued dispensing of tape. So long as the shield is not touching the package, the tape will continue to be freely dispensed. In some cases the plastic shield is pressed against the last bit of dispensed tape to help the user form an angular orientation of the dispenser which will maximize the probability that the tape will be able to be cut. This is so since it may take several attempts to try to force the abbreviated serrated blade against the tape to cut the tape.
Thus the blade of the conventional tape dispenser is made with several objectives in mind. First, it must not protrude too far. A blade which protrudes too far can cause negative consequences including (1) the tape may be cut before the user is finished dispensing the tape to the desired length, (2) the blade may seriously cut and injure the user or others, or (3) the blade may be damaged through simple handling of the manual dispenser, as by putting it down onto a hard surface. If the blade on most dispensers were to be mounted any less predominantly, it would be virtually impossible to cut the tape without having to manipulate the tape about the blade with the free hand. If resort to both hands must be had, a user would just as soon use the tape from a stand alone dispenser.
In general, tape dispensers of the presently used type work poorly in cutting the tape. This may not seem an important factor, but where one's job is packaging and it is performed continuously, a slight limitation in efficiency can mount up to significant dollar expenditure.
Another problem in the tape dispenser field deals with the core size of the rolls. Although most two inch tapes are available on a three inch diameter spool, some tapes are available on a one and a half inch spool. Conventional hand held tape dispensers do not have the capacity to accept both types of tape supply spools. A non-specific core adapter would be insufficient to insure that the tape supply roll would be guided into a good fit.
For still other tape dispensers, the user is forced to choose between a stand alone tape dispenser, or a manually utilized tape dispenser, or have to buy both. When the user is down to a single roll of tape, this roll of tape would need to be changed between the stand alone and the manually activated tape dispenser. Each time the tape is changed between these two, further waste can be generated in having to pick the tape off of the spool to re-start its use in the dispenser which fits the use for which the tape is needed.
Further, a table mounted tape dispenser has a tendency to be located in a central place, not towards being misplaced. Hand-held dispensers are more prone to being misplaced, especially where their appearance does not suggest the return to a location. What is therefore needed are tape dispenser configurations which satisfy the above limitations on tape dispensers in conventional use.